KENCHESTER, a parish in the hundred of GRIMSWORTH,
county of HEREFORD, 5 miles (VV. N. W.) from
Hereford, containing 94 inhabitants. The living is a
discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of
Hereford, rated in the king's books at £6. IS. 7.,endowed
with £200 private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty,
and in the patronage of the Crown. The church is dedicated
to St. Michael. According to Camden this
place was the Ariconium, but Dr. Horsley considers it
as the Magna, of the Romans. The form of the station
is that of an irregular hexagon, the site comprising fifty
or sixty acres; there are two openings on the west side,
and two on the north; some traces of the -walls, which
entirely surrounded the city, are discernible, but no vestiges
of any foss or ditch. The remains principally consist
of fragments of a temple at the eastern end, with a
niche of Roman brick and mortar, called the Chair;
around this are foundations and holes, similar to vaults;
at different periods large vaults, tesselated pavements,
a fine Mosaic floor, relics of pottery, urns, and large
bones, have been discovered. An hypocaust, about seven
feet square, with the leaden pipes entire, and those of
brick a foot in length and three inches square, was found
in 1670. At the close of the last century, a stone altar
was dug up from the foundation of the northern wall,
bearing an inscription implying its dedication to the
Emperor Csesar Marcus Aurelius, and now in the possession
of the Rev. J. C. Bird, rector of Dindon and
Mordiford.